A while ago, several Katrina victims sued FEMA for violating due process – essentially, various services that FEMA offered were not publicized or even explained to those who applied for assistance, meaning only those who knew through other means what was offered could access said services. In his decision, the judge reluctantly concluded that FEMA was not liable in this case, and explained: "this Court must leave any dissatisfaction with the law in this regard for those in the legislative branch to remedy."

That’s what this coming election is about, and it’s what Dems should pound over and over again: Government That Works.

Perhaps this could be expanded to “Government That Works for You,” because that allows for more direct applications. If we reject the right-wing meme that all Americans have a pathological hatred of government as being empirically false, we are left with people (including suburbanites) who expect the government they have to work for them. If their home gets hit with a disaster, they expect the President to get to work instead of finish his vacation or do photo ops. They expect Congress to work more than Tuesday to Thursday. They also expect them to work for the people, not for Abramoff, Wade, or the Telcos. And of course, there is the fact that they want it to work in the sense of functioning effectively.

Which brings us back to FEMA.

Remember, FEMA is part of the vaunted Department of Homeland Security. Examples cited from the Katrina debacle all point to the failures of those responsible to keep the homeland secure. Sadly, incompetence is not selective. Chertoff is the guy responsible for keeping you safe, so it’s quite instructive to see how he runs his organization. And the insane obsession with the privatization of emergency services leads to tremendously poor results, not least because effective coordination becomes impossible. Lois wonders if this is by design rather than mere incompetence, but her post proves it is fact both incompetent execution and incompetent design. The Republicans really really believed that privatization of everything from relief services to mercenary soldiers would work better, and they were really really wrong. 

Here’s some key graphs from judge Duval’s incredulous decision:

...while FEMA may not be legally required to notify applicants or recipients of assistance about what FEMA provides, much less provide any data regarding its availability or the requirements for obtaining such assistance, one can only wonder why FEMA would choose to not do so, as has so often been the case herein.

It defies reason that a federal agency whose exclusive provision -- and indeed, sole reason for existence -- is to assist fellow Americans in a time of natural disaster in meeting their utmost needs would fail to notify people of the available services and the requirements for engaging those services, in some clear, consistent, and accessible way.

It also defies reason that such an agency would be seemingly more concerned with fraud on the individual level than with actually helping those persons whose lives have been literally turned upside down through no fault of their own.

…Despite the voluminous "administrative record" provided to the Court by FEMA, and despite FEMA's stated good intentions to the contrary, the Court has seen scant evidence that any such desire for openness and clarity guided any of FEMA's communications, and this obfuscation has acted much to the detriment of plaintiffs, and indeed, the entire country.

FEMA is not legally required to notify applicants or recipients of assistance about what FEMA provides or how to obtain such assistance. Regrettably this Court must leave any dissatisfaction with the law in this regard for those in the legislative branch to remedy.

As I argued before, we have searing images which are the most effective way to communicate the consequences of FEMA’s original failure to respond to the flood. Those are the backbone of the continuing story of FEMA’s incompetence. People are still unable to get the services they need because FEMA either does not publicize the services or plays bait and switch.  And while there are people still waiting for FEMA trailers ten months after the flood, those who no longer need the trailers because they’ve fixed their houses cannot get rid of them:

The Kenner resident hasn't needed the temporary housing since April, when she moved back into her home and started asking the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove the trailer from her front yard… [she] has found that getting a trailer hauled away is no easier than having one delivered. She has tried the FEMA hotline, but her calls were bounced from the agency to its private contractors and back again. She is frustrated that her trailer sits idle while other families are still desperate for theirs to arrive.

… homeowners are especially irked because the federal government seems to have masses of roving inspectors hired through contractors like the Shaw Group who show up monthly and seem to do little more than walk around the trailer.

I assure you that those Shaw Group folks are getting paid. But they are not doing the job that needs to be done, even if they are doing what they were contracted to do.

The ongoing tragic tale of the FEMA response to Katrina carries with it a moral: this is what happens when you elect a government that hates government. In the minds of our self-hating government, the fact that private contractors are more expensive and less effective is more than offset by the fact that they are not government.

Government self-hatred inevitably leads to self-sabotage. They presently have the power to sabotage government in ways that they never dreamed of, and there are huge consequences to this. The FEMA debacle is merely exhibit A. These self-haters are incapable of reforming themselves because they don’t want to.  The only solution is to get them out of government so they can get back to the natural role of hating government from the outside.